Longing from a subconscious
by notsosolemnly
Summary: When a chain of events cause James to lose his vision, Sirius is quick to profit off of the resulting artistry.
1. A Super Awesome Potion

Longing from a subconscious

Part 1

In a vaguely by torches lit potions lab, ingredients were plopped into a medium sized kettle. The thermometer in the draught showed 300 degrees (Celsius) and it boiled furiously.

"Pixy skulls, dried puppy noses, Napoleon's ashes…" Snape had a habit of mumbling everything before dropping it. "And done!"

His thin fingers closed around a bottle that had once, judging by the skull and crossbones label, contained something deadly. He removed the cork and ripped the label off before filling it with the kettle's content. This potion smelled like raisins when bottled. Snape didn't like raisins, but it didn't matter because it wasn't for him. When the bottle had been filled he corked it and cleaned up after himself.

"Now it's payback time!" He tossed his hair back and cackled diabolically as he swabbed some spilled fluids off the table. The maniacal laughter echoed in the dungeons and concerned the decorative bats.

The way the staircases moved about according to their own whims, it could be hard to keep track on just what floor you were currently on, but it was probably on the western bottom stairs of the seventh floor, which were in the vicinity of the Ancient Runes classroom, that Remus settled down to do some pre-class preparatory reading.

"So how did you all do on the exam?"

"All right, I think" said James, casually doodling obscenities on a quaffle.

"What exam?" Sirius asked, seemingly thinking that lying upside down on his back over the stairs was a good position for adding details to the quaffle doodles.

"The Transfiguration exam this morning"

"This morning, this morning… Where was I _this morning?"_

"Did you have 'French tutoring'?"

They watched with mild curiosity Snape approach them as if they were a flock of deers, wondering if he was simply passing or if he happened to have some business with them. But he just stopped by the windows nearby to do some pre-class preparatory reading, placing the bottle he had clutched on the sill.

"What do you have there?" Sirius shouted at him.

"Not telling you!" Snape shouted back.

"Oooh, is it a _secret!"  
_"If I told you, you would only want it for yourselves" Snape put down his book. "I'm leaving for a moment"

"Stop the presses…"

"_Don't _touch my Super Awesome Potion!" Snape swished around a corner.

The bottle sparkled in the sunlight, resembling a pear flavoured soft drink.

"That was weird" said Peter. "Do you suppose that really is SAP?"

Because lying over steps of stairs on your back was uncomfortable, Sirius sat up.

"Suddenly I'm thirsty" he said, stretching.

"Careful, you don't know where it's been" said James.

But Sirius was already returning with the bottle and proceeded to put it through some basic tests that didn't require more than a wand.

"You do realize it's a trap" said Remus.

"Not a lethal one" Sirius stuck his wand behind his ear and chugged.

"When I said, 'you don't know where it's been'…" James stared in mixed shock and disgust as Sirius grimaced in mixed disgust and disgust.

"I know I thought you were joking"

"I can't believe you did that"

"People who lack nerve generally can't"  
And that is how they all came to chug it.

The Gendus Bendus potion was what you called a _night onset potion, _meaning it was activated by night sleep. The residents of dormitory M had forgotten all about the chugging when it towards the afternoon seemed like it hadn't been a trap at all, and so waking up the next morning as witches had taken them all by surprise.

Professor Slughorn was halfway through his anecdote about the time he introduced Linda to Paul McCartney when said witches, none of which he recognized but found vaguely familiar, came barging into class, later than ex-parrots.

"Can I help you ladies?" he asked, blushing because one of them was simply too stunning to be legal.

"We're not _really _chicks, it's just temporary" Sirius explained, finding the attention revolting but wearing his gender-bent self with pride nonetheless as he went to the back of the lab to stare at the student that had taken his place until he took his things and left.

"Here's my paper on why you should never under any circumstances put oregano in potions" said Remus and gave the paper to the bewildered professor.

"OhIsee!" Slughorn spluttered and gestured for him to go and take his place so he could continue with his anecdote.

"Yes, Linda and I went to the same cooking class in New York…" he continued, fumbling nervously with the papers on his desk.

"I've always wondered if my woman self would have this effect on men. Also" said Sirius, brushing hair from his eyes.

"I wouldn't count perverts if I were you" James wasn't too disappointed in the results of his change either; in fact, he had been looking in a mirror non-stop since morning.

"So what do you think, then? Do you think I'm hot?"

"He _just _said you _shouldn't _count perverts" said Remus, looking up page 394 in _Onset Manipulation in Potions. _

"Perverts have standards too. Do you think I'm hot?"

"No I don't"  
"Liar"

"You do look like your mum" James had to admit.

"Why would you say that?" Sirius asked, hurt at the cruel remark.

"That doesn't work. She won that Sophia Loren look-alike contest in the prophet. Now all of Wizard Britain fancies your mum"

"Sophia Loren is weird looking"

"A bit. Your mum is hotter than Sophia Loren"

"So marry her, I'm sure she'd like some appreciation"

"Pfft. Do you want me to be your dad?"

Shrug. "It would be a trade up, for us both"

"Can I remarry so you get a new mum too?"

"Marry Raquel Welch!"  
"Done!" 


	2. An offer he can't refuse

Longing from a subconscious

Part 2

The stands were packed with students eagerly looking forward to Gryffindor playing Ravenclaw. Hogwarts was lacking in many things- working pipes, safety, non-sinister professors that knew their subject, - but it had produced some of the most renowned Quidditch stars throughout its history, something the recruiter of the Diagon Alley based The Wild Waxwings Mr Stevens and the coach of the team Mr Jeff were well aware of.

"So why did you bring me here, Steve?" Mr Jeff asked as he added butter to his popcorn.

"Well you said you were looking for more women players for the Wax Wings. I got a tip. Apparently there is a witch here that is truly world class" Mr Stevens opened his file and browsed after the head shot. "Rolanda Hooch, 16, chaser. I saw her myself this summer. She coaches and plays for the Junior Lanterns. This lady is pro level"

"If you say so"

The game had started and they watched under the sounds of crunching and slurping.

"So" said Jeff. "I can't find her, which one is it?"

"Her there, with the weird hair. Yeah, it looks different in the head shot. Apparently she took a bath with a jinxed toaster and it hasn't been the same since"

"It's still pretty cool, 'though"

They watched some more.

"Well, she is very good" said Jeff.

"I know"  
"But, not quite as good as _her _over there!"

Then a bludger hit Jeff in the head.

Despite the effortless victory, James was more embarrassed than proud for having one in his team hit legendary Jeff Jeff in the head with a bludger.

"My God, Simon, what were you thinking?!"

"I don't know, everything happened so fast! And you being a chick now, that is pretty distracting!"

"I don't care how hot you find me right now, it's still no excuse! What was Jeff doing there anyway, shouldn't he be doing something more important?"

"Did you see that Steve Stevens was right next to him?" Rol asked, removing and folding her shock blanket.

"Of course I did"

"Legendary recruiter Steve Stevens…"

"Shut up before I kill myself"

"Maybe they were looking for players"

"Shut up"

"It happened to Darren O'Hare! He started just like us. You read his bio"

"I said shut up!"

"Steve Stevens and Jeff Jeff"

Not wanting to take more of this, James left the commonroom. And who should he run into almost immediately, if not legendary recruiter Steve Stevens.

"You. Lady!" Stevens went straight up to him.

"Omygodit'sSteveStevens" James hyperventilated and giggled.

"What's your name?"

"Uh… Morgana. Fudge" He didn't know where that name came from, in all honesty. They had covered the Arthurian Era in history earlier, and he was peckish for fudge.

"You were good out there, Miss Fudge"

"Oh… stop…"

"Jeff has regained consciousness and would really like to see you"

"Ok, when?"

"Right now"

"Right… now?"

"Yeah"

"Right… now isn't… very… good"

"Ok, do you need a minute? Jeff doesn't have all night. The Waxwings are in a dire need of another woman player"

"_Woman _player?"

"Right now they just have Suzy Higgins. And that upsets feminists and stuff. If you don't think you're up for the challenge and pressure that comes with the fame of being a famous Waxwing, then we'll just look somewhere else. We can't waste any time. The cup begins this summer!"

"But…"

"So how's it gonna be, Fudge? It's now or never"

Stevens gave him his card and left.

The glistening 8-ball reflected the dim ceiling lamp. The leisure room was smoky and buzzing with lively chatter and slurping of virgin Screwdrivers and you could barely hear the broken _Top of the pops -71 _that had gotten stuck in the middle of _My Sweet Lord. _Sirius was aiming with care.

"Hello… not-doing-any-homework-for-the-rest-of-the-term-"  
"Could you maybe not take all night?" Remus put down the chalk cube, just a little bit curious to find out if you could use it as eye shadow but not curious enough to act on it.

"Why would you say that, when you know that will only slow me down even more? Is it because you want me to take all night so you can gawk at my awesome cleavage while you suggestively polish your cue stick?"

"You're enjoying yourself too much"

"You could be, too"

Sirius was just about to shoot at last, when a quaffle fell down on his cue stick and broke it and sent the 8-ball and the cue ball rolling in opposite directions.

"For _God's _sake!"

"Not sorry about that" James took the ball off the pool table and placed it spinning again on top of his right index finger.

"A tie. Again" said Remus.

Sirius yanked the note with the score results from under his top and scribbled some on it. "I would have gotten that one" Then he went to fetch a new cue stick.

"Nope"  
"Oh, don't be jealous. You're kind of rocking that my-gran-when-she-was-a-young-housewife-and-there-was-a-war-somewhere look" said Sirius, and got shoved for attempting to undo the topmost buttons on Remus' blouse.

"You haven't been chicks for one day even and you're already undressing each other" said Cas, arriving at the pool table.

"Wouldn't you be doing the same?"

"You mean, if we got turned into blokes?"

"No"  
"Anyway" said Mac. "Because having you prancing around as witches is simply an insult to the real struggle the experience encompasses in reality, we made some antidote. It will take effect an hour after ingestion"

Lily put the bottle with the antidote on the pool table.

"You're welcome"

"Took you long enough" Sirius chugged a fourth and passed it to Remus.

"He means thank you" said Remus.

"No he doesn't" said Lily.

Then Peter chugged another fourth and then only a fourth remained.

"I'll take it later" said James, now chalking a cue stick.

"Why?" Sirius asked.

"Because… I've had so much water and now I'm really full"

"No you haven't, you were just saying that you were really thirsty"

"No, I said I wasn't thirsty"

"No you didn't"

"You heard wrong"

"No I didn't. Besides, why would you say that when nobody asked?"

"You say a lot of things although nobody asked!"

"It's like two teaspoons, just take it" said Lily.

"No I'm allergic"

"To what?"

"Everything ok get off my back!" James dropped the cue stick and left the leisure room.

"Well that was weird" said Remus.

"Maybe… He finally feels like he is in the right body" said Sirius, nodding at his own theory.

This new dilemma that James was now facing was a source of so much angst that nearly an hour later it still rendered him incapable of doing much else aside from lying in bed and angsting. He barely heard his fellow dorm companions return, over the sound of his internal angst.

"I feel so cursed" he said.

"It must be hard managing your life while secretly wanting to wear a dress" said Remus dryly, dropping some books on his bed.

"Hey, there's more to transgenderism than wanting to wear dresses" Sirius reproached.

"I'm not transgendered" said James.

"Of _course _you're not. You're a _real _woman" Wink.

"No, really. All my life I've dreamt of being recruited to a famous team. And when the day finally comes, it turns out they are only looking for women players! God I hate feminism!"  
"What does this have to do with you refusing to change back?"

"Because Mr Jeff doesn't want _me, _but he wants Morgana"

"And Morgana is… you?"

"Yep"  
Since that hour had nearly passed, the ones who had chugged the potion thought now was a good time to change from the clothes they had yanked from the girls' locker room to their ordinary clothes. The more self-conscious ones died so behind their bed curtains. Sirius was not too shy to remove the garters out in the open.

"Go for it, I say" he said. "I didn't really want to take it so soon, but at the same time, there was a part I missed"  
A curtain swished open, a mere two seconds after it had closed.

"Is it just me" said Remus, back in his usual shades of green. "Or does posing as a chick to play some elite quidditch seem a bit immoral?"

"Probably just you"

"I'll tell you what's immoral!" James sat up and adjusted the skirt some. "Recruiting female players for the sake of equality even though there are male players that are better"

"I'm sure that somewhere, there is a female player who is better than you"  
"That's not the point. She's not an option as long as she only exists in theory. I told them, I have a brother who is much better-"

"But, you're not better than yourself, are you?" Sirius asked.

"Well, honestly, I don't know. Maybe this change made me a little less good. You know, different physiques and stuff. It's science. Biology" Ahem. "Maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but I don't think it's entirely without basis"  
"Can you cite some sources to back up your claim?" Remus asked.

"Shut up"  
"You're just bummed because a big shot quidditch person has never looked for you"

"But it's so unfair that the only reason they went with me instead of Rol is because they think I'm a girl"  
"That's life for you"  
"Yup" Sirius flicked a bra at Remus, then caught it with his feet when it was flicked back at him. "At least you can comfort yourself with the fact that you got a chance to turn down those lameass Waxwings. You always said they fly like pissants and that you'd rather stick needles up your discostick than fly for them"

"Have I really… said that?" James asked.

"Yup. I asked you to say it again so I could record it. Shall I play it back to you?"

"No, thanks"

"So you're better off without those imbalanced pansies who can't even aim their own spit"

"They've gotten… better"

"Have they? Did it happen overnight?"

"Maybe. Ok, maybe they suck. That just proves how much they need me!"

"Oh. I didn't realize you had already agreed to do it"

Sirius had in all honesty (although that was impossible to know for sure, but that's what he insisted… slightly sarcastic) not intended to throw his net stockings in Peter's face so he tripped and crashed into a very unstable cupboard in the middle of the floor, releasing a bunch of poisonous Monster Scissors that in their fury of having been awoken from their nap nipped him quite badly in his legs, so badly in fact he had to be taken to St Mungos.

"Oops" said Remus when the paramedics had left and he was picking up the rocks he had thrown at the scissors.

"My homework for three months and that did not happen in here" said Sirius.

"I _told _him, you don't _run _from scissors!" After shoving the sack of rocks under the bed, Remus fetched a roll of duct tape to roll around the cupboard with the very unreliable doors.

"I know it was totally his fault. My homework for three months and nobody has to know about your illegal cupboards"

It was a deal.


	3. Some unwanted attention

Longing from a subconscious

Part 3

Late for the trial, James couldn't imagine anything more embarrassing as he ran out on the field in West Monster, Diagon Alley.

"I'm here!" he yelled, and Mr Jeff turned his attention from the practicing players to the late newcomer.

"I'm late because of school" James lied. His shirking had nothing to do with this.

"School is important" said Mr Jeff. "But if you're late again it's over for you is that clear?"

"Yes sir"

Mr Jeff blew his whistle and he players gathered around him.

"This is Fudge, everybody. She's here for the trial"

Then he whistled for them all to take their positions.

Practicing with the Waxwings was surprisingly tough and fierce. Mr Jeff screamed at them constantly and there was some foul play and tackling that went him unnoticeably by. Or perhaps he just didn't care, or perhaps he even encouraged it. Either way, James had certainly heard that the relationships between players in elite teams tended to be hostile due to their massive egos, and due to his own massive ego he had thought that he could match it, but here with them now… They were a sly bunch and he had never felt so unconfident and he didn't score as well as usual because of it. When the training was over he was sure that he would not be asked to come back, and perhaps that would be for the best, that way he wouldn't have to do this possibly immoral thing and he had still given it an honest chance.

"You were all horrible" said Mr Jeff. "Now go and shower!"

"It was Fudge, coach! She kept… aiming really badly!" protested a player.

"It's part of a maneuver I'm working on!" James defended himself.

"Don't! Maybe it works in amateur quidditch against other children, but this is adult pro quidditch and there is no room for fooling around and showing off like a diva!"

"Yeah!" another player agreed. "Women!"

"All right, all right" said Mr Jeff. "You can all go and shower now. Oh, and Fudge?"

"… Yeah…?"

"Come to my office after showering and sign the contract"

In spite of having hoped a little for rejection, this was still food for the ego, even if it was the lameass Waxwings.

The biggest challenge of all was perhaps juggling the tight practicing schedule with school. It took so much time that James often caught himself, much to his own surprise, secretly reading while Mr Jeff went on his usual post-game you-all-suck tirade.

"What was that out there?" Mr Jeff yelled at them all after one practice session. "I've seen more order in a haystack!" His reprimanding gaze fell upon James, who closed his book quickly.

"Well, ants are really organized!" he pointed out, somehow feeling like he was echoing somebody elses' words. Stupid book. He threw it away.

"Another smart arse, just what I need! You should feel particularly bad!"

"_Me?"  
_"Yes, Miss Fudge, you! What was that, throwing that bludger at Higgins so you dislocated her shoulder?"

"It was an acci-"

"'_It was an accident!' _ In pro-quidditch there is no tolerance for excuses! I've had it with your maneuvers!"

"You don't when they work…" James muttered, summoning the book again because he did have an exam coming up in a few days.

"What was that?"

"Nothing"

Then Stoker, a fellow chaser, came unexpectedly to Miss Fudges' defense.

"It was Higgins that flew badly, coach" he said. "She was completely out of focus the whole time"  
"I was not!" Higgins objected angrily.

"You so were! It's like your mind was elsewhere the whole time! And your reflexes were really poor!"  
"My reflexes are fine, Stoker, which can't be said about your flopping excuse for reflexes! You zigzag so much it confuses more than it does use!"  
"Oh, Miss Higgins gets _confused _so easily! Well, leave then, if you can't handle any speed faster than a mile per hour-"

"Oh, that's rich-"  
"Ok, ok!" Mr Jeff finally intervened. "I've had it with you children. Get out of my sight, see you tomorrow"

So all in all it had been a pretty average practice session with the Waxwings, save for the unexpectedly noble intervention of Stoker. Not that James had particularly wanted for somebody to steal his battles like he was some damsel, but it was the thought that counted. Miss Higgins was clearly upset about it and glared at him as she brushed by him, heading for the changing room.

"Showewing in school again, Fudge?" she asked in a high pitched tone. "What are you 'fwaid of?"

A thought bubble popped out of James' head, featuring Sirius.

"Do it. DO IT!" thought bubble- Sirius urged him.

"I told you not to thought-bubble me until after five!" James tried to poke a needle in the thought bubble, but it kept avoiding it.

"Come on! Leave chivalry behind for once and go and shower with that hot chick!"

Higgins frowned at thought- bubble Sirius.

"Excuse us" said James, taking his thought bubble and disappearing behind some trees where he and the bubble could confabulate in private. "If you're bored, put on your pirate costume"

"Come on. You hate everybody in the team and you hate being a girl. Why reject the one perk you have that is hanging out in the ladies' changing room!"

"Maybe some other time"

"Are you afraid you will like it?"

"No"

"So what's the problem?"

"If I wouldn't like it, why would I do it?"

"Because it's practical and less suspicious. I won't tell anyone"

"It's just Higgins in there anyway and we don't really get on, now hold still!" James attacked the bubble with the needle some more, but kept missing still.

"She thinks you're a wuss. Don't you want to prove to her that you most certainly are no wuss?"

"She's just mad because that chap she's been having an affair with criticized her in my favour"

"Stoker or Jeff?"

"Stoker"

"Aha… You made a fwiend"

"No, nobody 'makes fwiends' here"

"You clearly did. Stoker wants to be your _fwiend"_

"It had nothing to do with me, it was perfectly objective. She seemed really distracted today"

"There's somebody coming behind you, who is that?"

James looked behind himself, and it was Stoker himself.

"That's him" he said, hushedly.

"Your fwiend Stoker?"

"Shut up!"

"Well, I best be off now-"

"What? Now?"

"Catch up with you later"

"Can't you wait, I just have to fetch my stuff-"

"Byyyyyyye…" Sirius eerie voice lingered after him and the bubble had faded away.

"Who was that?" Stoker asked. "Your boyfriend?"

The initial reaction was 'blegh!', but it evolved into a 'why not?' so the final answer became:

"Yes"

"Oh. Is it serious?"

Har har. "Three years now!" Thumbs up.

"I guess that would seem like a long time at your age. You seem so mature for you age, I thought you'd be into… older guys"

That was the first time anybody had ever called James 'mature'. He wondered if the estrogen did that.

"Now that Higgins and I are through, I am free" Stoker went on, putting his hand on the aspen. "I like you, Fudge. You got spunk. Right now you're just a reserve, but with my help, you won't have to spend the tour on the bench"

"I'm just a reserve?"

"Well, yes. Somebody has to be, and it's often the least experienced. Anyway, as I was saying… I can help you. And if things don't work out between you and that bubble- guy, well, I'm sure being with a famous quidditch player would be more exciting for you"

"Like Darren O'Hare?"

"No, me!"

Now would have been a better time to be bubbled, because Stoker was just way too sleazy.


	4. The ultimatum

Longing from a subconscious

Part 4

That weekend the Wild Waxwings had a little mingling party celebrating 50 years of never winning the national cup in a nice, Elizabethan castle in West Monster. The guests and their dates glittered in their cocktail outfits by the free bar in the dim light. So this was mingling. A small group chatted by a marble bust of the founder of Gringotts, laughing falsely at something that wasn't really funny. Observing them without any particular interest really, Sirius decided he wanted to try something.

"I'll be right back" he said and went to the little gathering. One had just finished a story and the listeners laughed falsely again. Perfect timing to chime in.

"Oh ha ha ha that is _so _funny!" he laughed with them as their laughter was already dying out, therefore making the atmosphere rather uncomfortable. They all stared at him snobbishly as he grinned creepily at them all. They chuckled with awkward politeness and moved away from him not so discretely.

"Was it just like in that lame movie _The Party?" _James asked, chewing on a toothpick.

"Better"

Then Stoker showed up.

"Hey Fudge" he said. "You look great"

For some reason, it took James ages to come up with a reply. And as time passed, responding with something witty was out because timing was everything when it came to wittiness. So his mind was basically blank. So obviously, having just finished a whole cheese tray, Sirius saw the opportunity to try another thing he had seen in movies.

"Is this guy bothering you?" he glared at Stoker.

"No, baby" James assured him, 'though not convincingly.

"If it isn't bubble guy" said Stoker.

"You just be careful" Sirius pointed a toothpick at him. "Or I'll be trouble-guy!"

"God that was lame" James rolled his eyes.

"When I don't shave, I become stubble-guy! But you're just anothel-guy! So why don't you go and be the go-and-find-a-brothel guy?"

Stoker emptied his martini glass and put it on a tray carried by a passing house elf.

"I just wanted to say hi" he said and left.

"And stay out!" Sirius yelled after him.

"Ok, you're done now" said James, dropping a cigarette stump in the ashtray on the table beside him. "I don't know if I'll ever get used to that. Is it just me or do I get more attention like this?" He put his hands to his waist and went to a near mirror.

"I don't know"

"Can't say I blame them…" He tried to check his reflection from different angles.

"You do look like your mum, and she is fine for her age"

"Remind me to disable you when we get back"

"Don't worry, it doesn't make it at all weird that you find yourself hot. There are greek plays about that sort of thing"

James slammed Sirius' head against the table and left to find another cheese tray. Bored again, Sirius was just about to embark on the same quest for cheese when a woman in a red, glittery dressed stopped him in his path. Her eyebrows were thin and her lips were red as blood. This was Miss Higgins in her mingling gear.

"Hi" she said, swirling a Gin & Tonic.

"Hello"  
"I'm Suzy. Maybe you've heard of me. I'm in the Waxwings with Fudge"

"That's nice" Sirius swore he could see cheese across the room by the DJ.

"I dropped my earrings in the foyer" said Higgins. "Could you come and help me look for them?"

Gryffindor was a house of chivalry, which meant you simply did not turn a lady down, even if you were more interested in cheese. Well, if the lady was unattractive you could make up some excuse, if you felt like it. But you did not turn an attractive lady down, even if you were more interested in cheese.

Not two seconds into making it to the foyer was it evident that no earrings had been dropped on the sparkly rug at all. It was evident that Higgins had tricked him for devious purposes. Handsy purposes. Up against the wallsy purposes.

"I could teach you things…" she whispered. "Things that would make Miss Fudges' skin curl"

"Oh yeah like what?" Sirius asked, unimpressed because this was simply too cliché. Cheese was never cliché.

Miss Higgins was quite ready to go from telling to showing, when suddenly it occurred to Sirius that maybe this wasn't such a good idea, not only because it lacked cheese, and pushed her away.

"I'm not available, I think" he said. He had never pushed anybody away for not being available before, even when he wasn't available, and that was most of the time or hardly ever, depending on whom you asked.

"Oh come on!" Higgins let her hair out. "You can do so much better than Fudge! She doesn't seem at all like your type, she's so frigid!"

"I know but I'm marrying her for the baby"

"What?"

"She's so frigid! _'We have to get married now or I will be sent to a convent!' _Hey Fudge, I mean Morgana"

None of them had heard James come into the foyer. Sirius took the cheese tray from him.

"Am I interrupting something?" James asked uncertainly. "Because I better not be!"

"Bubble tells me you got something in your oven" said Higgins.

"What oven?"

"What do you think? What were you thinking, joining the team all preggers? You know it's forbidden four weeks into it! How far are you anyway? Not that it matters, because by the time of the cup you're definitely out!"

James lowered his glass of red wine and ginger ale, thinking.

"It's ok, I'm getting rid of it anyway"

"Your boyfriend just said you're getting married because of it"

"Erm… I'm sorry, love, but I fell down some stairs last week and lost it. Was going to tell you but didn't get around to it" Sip.

"That's fine I didn't want it anyway" said Sirius, and received a frowning reaction from both other parties. "But I'm also a bit sad" he therefore added. "I guess this means we won't have to get married after all"

"What, you were just going to marry me for the baby? Don't you love me?"

"Meh, I've been seeing somebody else"

James yanked the tray back. "This is boring. Let's find a therapist for our problems"

"Ok"

They finished their drinks and smokes before leaving with the cheese.

Mr Jeff's office was small and messy with papers and files and empty whiskey bottles all over the place. He gestured for Fudge to sit.

"You've been a Waxwing for three weeks now" he said.

"Spooky how the time files" James shrugged.

"To be blunt: why do you wear those?"

James fingered his thick, amber rims. "I'm legally blind without them"

"So? Can't you fix it? Those things can attract magpies! They can get splashy! The enemy might try to get them! In short, they are an Achilles heel! Lose accessories should be eliminated as much as possible!"

"It's no big deal, I've had no problems before"

"You'd have less problems without them"

"I don't know, I kind of think of them as lucky"

"_Lucky?!"_

"Not that I rely on luck, sir! Don't get me wrong! But… you know!"

Mr Jeff leaned back in his comfy chair.

"Oh, the superstition of women-"

"That's sexist, Mr Jeff!" Cough. "Sir"  
"You're a big fan of Darren O'Hare, are you not? Well, what do you think he would think?"

"He doesn't care as long as the job gets done!"  
"Why do you think no one has ever seen a pro player with glasses on? It's just not practical. Fix it or you're off"

"But… It's not that easy. To be honest, I have tried a couple of things in the past, with horrible results. I wasn't always colour blind, for example"

"You're colour blind?"

"On one eye. They could fix one. One time I got chronically dizzy after a potion because my eyes kept rolling back… You know, people are so ignorant and think there's a quick fix for everything but that's really not the case"  
"So do you have a condition or something? With a name?"

"Yeah. Gorgonitis. It's when you see a reflection of a Gorgon in a mirror. I have to wear these or my eyes will slowly turn to stone"

"Gorgonitis, you say… That's interesting because they mentioned that in the papers the other day" Mr Jeff looked though his drawers and found an article. "Experimental treatments are available. I could get them to take you"

"I don't know…"

"Let me put it this way: take it or you're off"

It was a deal.


	5. Not quite a prediction

Longing from a subconscious

Part 5

Sitting in a crowded waiting room was simply agonizing.

"Why do they have to keep you waiting?" James sighed, not terribly keen on having his optical organs poked with cold things.

"I'll tell you why!" Sirius flicked a page in _Home Witch. _"Because St Mungos is state funded!"  
"No it isn't. It's private. This is stupid. Why is there such a rush? It would be much smarter to wait for the trial results before doing anything rash"

"So other people can sacrifice themselves and not you? I thought you were all about sacrifice"

"Why would you think that? If I go blind, my budding career is definitely over"  
"Oh" Sirius yanked a pen from an unsupervised handbag next to him and began to scribble on a half finished cross word puzzle. "Blind? Nah. No one is going blind. That would just be silly"  
"'Silly'?"

"Yeah. You'd have to have those blind people glasses and a white cane and tell the ladies that you see with your hands. Silly"

"Thank you, I feel more reassured now"  
"Anyway, nobody is making you do this"  
"I know, but I live in the hopes of one day being a Kestrel. My foot is in!"  
"It's not even your foot, but Fudges' foot"

"Maybe I will come out as a transsexual or something. That would resolve that"

"Ok, if you're sure you want to risk going blind for a transsexual act. I've done it so who am I to judge?"

The numbers on the display above the reception desk changed and the wait was over at last, but it wasn't as much of a relief as it had seemed it would be when it felt like the wait was never going to end. Healer Mangrove showed them to her office, told her patient to sit on the bunk and ran her diagnosing charms over him, all of which made beeping sounds. She listened for strange beeps for a good five minutes, but all beeps came out all right.

"Well, miss Fudge" she said and sat down behind her desk. "You seem to be fit as a fiddle. Do you want to take part in the trial?"

"What are the odds for going blind?" James asked.

Mangrove laughed and gave him a form to sign. "There and there"

Although still hesitant, James signed the form and returned it.

"Great" Mangrove stuck the form in a file and fetched a syringe. "Take those off again. This is will only hurt a whole lot"

That turned out to be the understatement of the year.


	6. Nothing like Newton

Longing from a subconscious

Part 6

It wasn't a rare occurrence for Sirius to make random predictions that soon turned out to be true. In fact, it was uncanny how often it happened.

"Oh, Elvis, how you have let yourself go" he remarked one morning in class as he browsed through a fairly recent issue of red top magazine _Daily Erised. _"A sandwich will be the death of you"  
"A sandwich?" Not possessing the same gift for remote viewing, Remus assumed Sirius was just saying silly things for the sake of saying silly things as usual.

"Yup. A peanut butter banana and bacon sandwich"

And now it seemed he was also saying disgusting things for the sake of saying disgusting things, another hobby of his. Remus abandoned the very brief conversation in favour of paying attention in class again.

"Look" Sirius nudged James and slid the magazine closer to him. "Look how fat he is!"

The thing about Sirius' random predictions was that sometimes they could be very detailed and accurate, other times the exact opposite of something he had said would come true.

If James could have glared through his blind goggles, he would have. But since he couldn't, he would just have to smack Sirius upside the head with his cane. But first he had to find said head.

"Now hold still" he said when he had found what he had searched for. Then he smacked Sirius upside the head with the cane.

"Sorry, I keep forgetting" Sirius massaged the back of his head. "It's not like you can tell"

And since James couldn't glare now, he would just have to in a slightly aggressive manner rub his hands over Sirius' face, at least aggressively enough so it hurt a little. He finished with a pinch in the nose.

"Ow!"

In today's potions class, professor Slughorn was demonstrating how to fix a contaminated potion. On his desk was a tin can among other ingredients and equipment necessary for today's lesson.

"This is pixie bile" he explained, taking the tin can and showing the class as if he was about to perform a magic trick of the muggle variety. "One dollop is all you need. Now, this contains very high levels of carbonic acid, so it is very important that you do not shake these for fun. I repeat: do not shake these for fun. You don't want to get this in your eyes. I am sure that warning did not come too late. Well, here I go then"

He opened the can. The pixie bile gushed at him like an Icelandic geyser and wet him down completely. He put it away quickly.

"I'm blind! I'm blind!" he cried. "I have to get to Poppy quickly! If only I had some kind of walking stick to help navigate with…"

Remus grabbed the white cane and hurled it like a javelin towards Professor Slughorn, who caught it, told them they were all dismissed and left the potions lab.

"Where is it? Where is it?" James felt the table for that cane. "It was here, I know I put it here"

"Sorry, but Slughorn needed it" said Remus.

"So do I!"

"You have other options"

"Like what?"

"Well, for example" Remus arranged the arms of James and Sirius in a locked position, moving them as if they were confused mannequins. "There. That'll attract less attention"

"Temporarily then" James heaved a sigh, not terribly keen on clinging to another person. Sirius wasn't terribly keen either.

"Why do I have to be his Seeing Eye person?" he complained.

"Because it is funny" Remus replied factually.

"You could take things a little more seriously, you know"

"Could, should, would… I'll be in the library" Remus packed his things and exited the lab.

"Well" said James. "No point in hanging around here. So… Walk"

"_Don't _tell me to walk!" Sirius glowered slightly venomously.

"How else do I get you to walk?"

"I walk when I damn well feel like!"

James started to get irritated, it wasn't as if he had asked for this. He had not had this kind of trouble with his late Bichon Frisé.

"No bark!" he reprimanded and received a slap across the face.

Some slapping and neck nipping later and moderately agitated did James and Sirius eventually make it to the library under the kind of atmosphere the Cold War was often described to have.

"Find door" said James.

"We're in the library now" said Sirius. "Couldn't you figure that out with your super heightened senses?"

"Maybe you can smell moth eaten book from a hundred miles away, doesn't mean we all can!"

Sirius picked up _Peter has a ball _, a small book writtenin braille, from a stack of several books written in braille and shoved it in James' face.

"You're blind! You're supposed to have super senses now!"  
"I only got blind yesterday! I'm sure it takes some time! Now, find me sit place"  
Sirius pushed him between the bench and the table towards the window and pressed him down with his free arm. Being attached, he got automatically pulled down too.

"Be _gentle!" _James told him off. "No jammie dodgers for you!"

"I don't have to do this, you know"  
"Are you this horrible when Moony's not at his most vigurous?"

"He's not as obnoxious as you are. You don't lack vigour, you lack manners. Now here"

Sirius took another book from the stack and opened the first page.

"What does it say because I have no clue"

James fingered the dots on the page. "I should probably learn the alphabet first, that might make things easier"

"It's probably A, because there's a large red A on the page and then a drawing of an apple"

"How do you write Braille?"

Sirius shrugged.

"Hello are you still there?" James asked, tugging at Sirius' arm.

Answer arrived, conveniently enough, in the shape of a slate and a stylus and some paper. Remus placed it neatly on the table.

"Now look" he said. "Eh, I mean listen. This is a slate and stylus, by the way"

"Where did you get it?" Sirius asked.

"Pomfrey. Right, first you open the slate like this" he opened, and seemed pleased, as if he was teaching himself more than anybody else, as if he had always wanted to teach himself to write Braille but simply never had an excuse. "Then take a piece of paper" he followed his own instructions. "Put it between the slates, like this… No wait, like this. Close the thing. Snap" Pause. Then he picked up the stylus. "You write with the stylus, which is kind of like a pin on a doorknob. And you write from right to left. For example…." Another paused. He had taught himself Braille once, but since he didn't practice it much it had gotten a bit rusty. "Ball. That's… B. That's one and three… No, it's one and two. Count the dots vertically, their all numbered from 1 to 6. A is 1. L is all of the left column, or 1, 2, 3" he pricked the paper with the stylus. Then he put it down, opened the slate and removed the paper. He turned it and felt the dotty relief. "Piece of cake" He sent the slate and stylus across the table. Then he sat down by the window opposite the others, where he had parked himself early in the morning

James put away a Braille reference sheet when he was done fingering it and decided to try his hands on some writing.

"What should my best seller be about?" he pondered.

"A blind slave trader?" Sirius suggested.

Looking sneaky, James started prickling, in the beginning slowly and always checking the reference sheet before every letter. Seeing as he did this under contained giggles, it was indeed curious. But Sirius acted unbothered, picked up _ABC With Batty _and entertained himself with fingering that, for he couldn't of course let James have the upper hand of knowing an alphabet that he didn't.

Those two, they would always entertain themselves with just about anything as long as it wasn't related to what they were supposed to be doing e.g. class related, as if by principle, but it was probably reversed psychology.

"By the way" said Remus, fumbling with a piece of paper. "I copied my potions notes in Braille. Just to test that thing. For fun. You can have it if you want, otherwise I'll just throw it away"

"No don't throw it away!" James reached for the notes. "Why, thank you!" he turned to Sirius next. "Why can't you be more like him?"

"Because you'd have a double set of notes and nobody to abuse" Sirius replied, flicking a page.

"That's a good point"

"So you really find _ABC With Batty _more informative and stimulating than chapters 12-16 of _Intelligence Potions C, _do you_?" _Remus asked.

"I have to learn Braille too, now" Sirius replied. "Maybe you've noticed he's completely helpless without me"

James slid his sneaky writing across the table. Puzzled, Remus put his book down, unfolded the writing and fingered it.

"What's that, _a secret?" _Sirius fake-gasped.

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't" James replied enigmatically.

"I would assume it has something to do with me, except I don't really have secrets"  
"I suppose it's not a secret, then"  
Pause. Sirius could not guess the content just by observing the slight shift in Remus' expression has he fingered the writing. So maybe he frowned a bit, but that could mean virtually anything. Eventually he put it down, and looked at them both. Then he began to collect his things.

"What did it say?" Sirius asked.

"Take this the wrong way: I'm going to sit somewhere else"

"Why?"

"Because I want to do my homework in peace"  
"Did that writing tell you to mysteriously get up just to confuse me?"

"I'm an introvert. I need my alone time" And how great it felt to say it. It was like a weight off the chest. "See you at Charms" he left.

Slightly stunned at this, Sirius cooled himself. "Whatever"

"I did not see that coming" said James.

"What did you see coming?"

James pointed his wand at the folded writing and set it ablaze. It shriveled into ashy flakes under the fire.

"Let's just pretend that never happened"

"Why can't you just say what you wrote?"

"What does it matter?"

"It doesn't, because I don't have secrets"

"What do you think I wrote?"

Sirius did really not have any secrets, but that didn't mean he didn't sometimes blurt things when he was drunk, and then forgot all about it once he had sobered. He doubted he had said anything truly embarrassing, but whatever James had written, it had probably been taken out of context.

"If it's something I don't even remember, then… that would just be unfair"

"Just because you don't remember it does it mean it's not true"  
So something-blurted-while-drunk looked plausible.


	7. Hidden dephts

Longing from a subconscious

Part 7

Evening fell. Quidditch practice was on. James was directing everyone through the cunning use of wild gestures and shouting.

"You go there, you go there!" he pointed. There was a sound of glass shattering. "How are they doing?" he asked Sirius, to whom he was still clinging because he hadn't gotten his cane back.

Sirius paused in his crossword solving and tried to judge. It all looked like a chaotic mess, but then, when didn't it?

"That's a bit soon for them to be in a pile on the ground, isn't it? Or is there a point to that?"

"_All _of them?"

"No, not all of them" Thud. Thudthudthud. "Ok, now it's all of them. Is it normal for the hoops to catch on fire?"

"I bet you think this is a very good opportunity to make things up. Way to take advantage of my disability"

Rol appeared to be having a shouting discussion with Professor McGonagall, whose window had been shattered. All dark from soot in the face, she made her way towards the two spectators after Professor McGonagall had shut the window.

"I don't know if you heard any of that" she said.

"Who said that?!" James demanded.

"McGonagall says you're off. Sorry" Rolf returned to the team.

"Can you believe it?" said James, devastated.

"Yes" Sirius replied.

"You know what that is called?"

"A safety precaution?"

"That's right! _Discrimination! _Way to treat the disabled! The press will hear of this!_" _he yelled in much anger.

"You once kicked Mort for an infected nail"

"An infected nail hurts a _lot! _Very difficult to hold on to things when you're fingers are in pain"

"And it's difficult to direct people when you're facing away from them"

For the first time in his life was James just a little more than just annoyed at Sirius' ironic (or determined?) tendency to make a mockery out of everything. Quidditch wasn't just a hobby, it was a major part of his identity and it gave him a great sense of importance. Without it, he felt kind of stripped and at loss. So he let go of Sirius, gave him a demonstrative shove and stomped off on his own.

"Oh, come on" said Sirius, like some people do when they think that somebody is overreacting, and followed, because it wasn't as if he had any business hanging around.

"As long as _you're _having fun!" James yelled back, suddenly heading right.

"Do you have something to do in the forest?"

James stopped. "_Maybe!" _Ok, so he didn't. He turned left, now heading towards the entrance. Then he tripped on a rock and fell down on his knees on wet grass. This was as mopy as he had ever felt. Or quite possibly the first time he had felt mopy at all.

"So maybe I can't see the appeal of that stupid game with the weird rules" said Sirius, when he had caught up. "But you must have some other hobby or interest"

"What difference would it make if I did? I used to _be _someone, and now… I'm nobody… I wish I could just reject organizations like you do and just pick up whatever my current whim bid for the day, but I guess I don't have that in me. And now, it's like I don't even know who I am anymore"

"You'd rather be bored all the time…?" Sirius threw the stump that remained from his floo roll on the ground and pressed it with his sole against the wet grass. "Anyway, I seem to recall a story…"

"What story?"

"Involving a certain Mr O'Hare and hair extensions and glue-laced hoop polish. When his neck cracked and his thumbs got paralyzed due to damaged nerve endings, did he sit and mope?"

"He did for an entire autobiography"

"Which brings me to my point. When life gives you lemons, you write a song about it. Or paint one"

"I don't know, I've never been artistic"  
"You don't have a choice. It is the destiny of anybody who feels like a nobody to become an artist. That's just how it works. Great way to feed your ego. So go! Go and learn to play the piano!"

James could only be bothered to learn _Don't you worry 'bout a thing_ on piano before he lost interest and walked away from the grand piano in the drama room.

"I honestly don't see what's so fun about playing the piano" he said and went to sit down on the edge of the stage to doodle on the back of some test results.

"Wow you're a nay sayer" said Sirius, racing to take the piano next but Remus beat him to it because he had been closer.

"I know… I feel so empty inside and I have the strangest urge to fill that void with meaningless physical intimacy, as if that would validate me somehow… Does that make sense?"

Having just noticed a smudge of lipstick on his collar, Sirius was a bit too distracted with trying to remove it to pay any close attention. "Take a nap. You're rambling"

"You seem to be very in tune with your feelings all of a sudden" Remus paused in his playing to scribble some notes on an empty notes sheet.

"I know, and it _sucks!" _James crumpled some old test results and threw it behind him so it landed on the piano. Remus uncrumpled it out of curiosity and turned it over, too look at the doodles. His jaw dropped a little. This was not simple doodles, this was a very detailed monochromic ink illustration of the quidditch field at sunrise. Drops of dew sparkled in the grass, a pair of magpies sat on a glistening iron hoops in the foreground, just slightly lit up by the distant sunlight breaking through the clouds… This wasn't just an illustration. This was art. And on an entirely different level of skill than the indecent stick figure drawings that James normally doodled when he had a little bit of time to kill. Sirius was also looking, already plotting how to make money out of this.


	8. Everyone's a critic

Longing from a subconscious

Part 8

The casual doodles kept being crumpled and tossed into bins the following week, because James thought he was doodling indecent stick figures like always and not capturing moments on the field at different hours of the day, in different weather, from all kinds of angles and not rarely incorporating wildlife, most often various kinds of birds. And whenever a doodle was absentmindedly tossed away, Sirius was there to pick it up, wondering if you could exhibit drawings even if they were a little battered.

"Meh, it's art, what difference does it make, as long as you frame it should be fine" he reasoned after having unfolded the latest reject, which featured the field but as seen through the window in a near broom shed, with a swallow's nest in the front.

"Truly, I had no idea there was such poetry to be found in a common sports field" said Remus. "The way the window reflects what is hidden in the shadow, as if to say that hiding is unavailing, the way the snitch in the nest is partly obscured and partly illuminated, as a symbol of everyones' inner duality, the way the hoops are always present, as some kind of running theme, as an expression of that stability and desire to be seen that everyone longs for"

"Or maybe they are just so freaking clumsy and large that you can't miss them" said Sirius. "Kind of stalkerish, if you ask me"

"Clumsy and large? Would you call mountains clumsy and large?"

"Yes, I would call mountains clumsy and large. Those poor little birds… Leave them alone, they never hurt anyone! Although, they are clearly thieving and greedy buggers" he pointed at the snitch in the nest. "And now they fear what is coming for them. You can try to hide, but the judging eye sees all!"

"Thieving and greedy? Did you know Indians don't have words for 'yours' and 'mine'?"

"They look a little mad. Moonlight does that to loads of things, apparently"

Now was a good time to change subject. "How many drawings have you collected so far?"

"Maybe… twenty of them or something. That should be enough for an exhibition, don't you think? But where to have it, that is the question"

"There's an art gallery in the same building as the Hogsmead library. Try there"

And that's what they did straight away, after first making some dummies that could replace them at Transfiguration. For some unspoken reason did they want to wait before telling James he wasn't in fact drawing indecent stick figures, perhaps they simply wanted it confirmed by an expert first.

The dummies had inbuilt tape recorders. And they weren't very convincing dummies, sacks of hay with faces drawn on them as they were (whatever point there was to that). In any case, one was sly looking and one was frowning. And every time you nudged them, they spoke.

"So, that is what you have to do" said Professor McGonagall. "And you can do it wherever you want"

Independent studies was a wonderful thing, great opportunity to slack off. A student accidentally nudged the frowning dummy.

"I'm going to the library" it said.

"Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced my cane again" said James, seizing the sly dummy. "Let's go"

"No" said the sly dummy.

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

No answer. "I think you could be a little more understanding!" James nudged the sly sack of hay.

"Yes" it said.

"So, what, would you rather hang around here?"

No answer. He nudged it again. "No" it said.

"So, let's go!" Nudge.

"Yes"

"Well, get up!"  
"No"

The frowning sack of hay fell off the chair and landed on the floor, face first.

"I'm going to the library"

"You're still here?" No answer. "Has he left?" Nudge.

"Yes" said sly sack of hay.

James sighed. "I suppose you have a point. I should try harder to make it on my own" He got up and stepped on the sack of hay on the floor accidentally.

"I'm going to the library"

"You're still here?" No answer. "You said he left" Nudge.

"No"

"Yes you _did!"  
_"Yes"

"You! Stop turning this into a joke!" he shoved the sly dummy so it fell to the floor.

"No"

"I'm going to the library"

"So go then!"

A student stomped on the frowning hay.

"I'm going to the library"

"I heard you the first time!" he kicked the sly sack by accident.

"Yes"  
"Yes what?" No answer. "You know what, fuck you both!" He stormed off, quite fed up with this.

The chief exhibitor of the Hogsmead Public Gallery was looking as the drawings through a monocle in his office.

"Interesting, very interesting" he mumbled. "The ink work is quite stunning, the delicate lighting, the crisp lines, the sharp foreground and blurry backgrounds… Very reminiscent of great ink artists like Tibbles, Willingbill, Larue Larue and other post-modern pseudo-monochrome-semi-renaissance- classic-movement artists"

"So, can I exhibit them here?" Sirius asked.

"Hm" the exhibitor leaned back, still looking at the drawings. "Our exhibitions are themed and they feature artwork from several different artists. We open a new exhibition this weekend, the theme being _Longing. _I suppose, one could argue…" He tilted the drawings a bit.

"I would definitely call that longing"

"Mhm, mhm… But this style would be a bit unconventional"

"Why? You just likened it to Larue Larue!"

"Yes, but… Come with me, and I'll show you around"

All three left the office. The current exhibition bore the theme _Body _and the art work exhibited was not crisp ink work. Not even brush work. One piece involved a canvas, but it had been torn with a knife and to understand it you had to listen, and what you heard was the distant bells of Notre Damme and every time they clanged the cuts tore up a little bit more and blood dropped out of the growing crack, at least it was probably supposed to represent blood.

"No, it's real blood" said Remus and walked away from it because his molars started itching.

Another piece of exhibited art was a rotating clothing stand and when you removed one item of clothing you could see a naked person sitting inside of it and he started screaming. That piece was titled _Sandpaper_.

"So you see" explained the exhibitor. "The drawings are nice for sure, but they are a bit mainstream and a bit too easy to understand"

"But it's super complex, look!" Sirius took the batch of drawings from the exhibitor and went through them. "Look at this one, this one is just plain morbid" he showed a drawing of a hedgehog with a cracked skull and a bludger, and you could see the increasingly sinister hoops in its glossy wet-from-rain reflection.

"I know. It's obvious. Our thing is the abstract"

"You mean you glue a thing to another thing and call it a third thing?"

"Exactly"

"Fine. Good day to you" Sirius turned to leave.

"Although…" said the exhibitor. "We have received some complaints from elderly visitors that we are a bit _too _abstract. We have talked it over, if we could mix it up a bit more. To tell you the truth, a lot of abstract art just isn't good. People are just afraid to say it"

"I can see that, I mean what is that?" Sirius gestured towards a black spider dangling from a string of web, playing cymbals.

"That's just, we have an infestation problem"

Remus unscrewed an empty glass jar silently and caught the spider in a snap.

"Tell you what" said the exhibitor. "I can exhibit three of the drawings"

"10" Sirius countered.

"5"

"12"  
"7, that is as high as I am willing to go!"  
"10"

"Ok deal"

The afternoon sun cast its' warm light through the library windows, illuminating dust.

"Am I a celebrity?" James asked, bearing a note with _Raquel Welch _on his forehead, leaning against the window with legs stretched out on the bench and kicking the sly sack of hay before him in its sides.

"Yes" the sack of hay replied.

"Am I a woman?"

"No"

"Ok. Your turn"

"Yes"

James crumpled another meaningless doodle and tossed it away. It hit the frowning sack of hay that sat across the table.

"I'm going to the library"

James leaned towards the sly sack. "I think he's gotten stuck or something"

"No"

"What do you mean, no?"

"Yes"

Suddenly the sacks of hay were replaced by their wizard counterparts.

"Hello" said Sirius. James looked up, confused. Sirius took the sly sack of hay and threw it away.

"You know those obscene stick figure doodles you do?"

"What of them?"

"Well, they aren't in fact obscene stick figure doodles. They are-"

Remus tugged at Sirius so he'd come with him around the shelf.

"Look" he said, when they had found some privacy in the detective fiction section. "Does he really need to know they aren't stick figure doodles?"

"Are you saying… We shouldn't let him know at all and keep all the money to ourselves? I was thinking that, but I was sure you would oppose it"

"I mean, he clearly doesn't know what he's doing. Those images are springing from his subconscious. If you tell him they are masterful field scene illustrations that a gallery wants to exhibit, it might A, go to his head and B, put pressure on him, and that might affect the quality of future work"

"Phew, for a moment there I thought you were going to take the moral high ground"

"I just don't think it needs rushing, that's all"

"So what do you propose? That we tell him they want to exhibit his stick figures?"

"Why not? I'm sure he'd buy it"

They rounded the shelf again.

"Am I real?" James asked.

"Yes"  
"And I am a man?"

"No"

"You _said _I wasn't a woman!"  
"Yes"  
"So am I a woman?"

"No"  
How the sly sack of hay had gotten back up on the bench was difficult to deduce. Sirius threw it away again.

"Hey guess what?"

"What?"

"An art gallery wants to exhibit your stick figures"

"Do they, now?"

"Yep. The exhibition opens this weekend""  
"Well, well. I suppose the art winds have turned"

"What do you mean?"

"I was at the Hogsmead art gallery a couple of years ago… You were there too"

"Was I? I don't remember"

"They had a psychedelic theme and you wanted to get high on mushrooms and then see if they would suck you in or something. You were also very, very drunk. And said some very, very interesting things"

"Like _what?"_

"Maybe I didn't take enough, but the paintings sucked. Like, a child could have drawn them. I told them, my stick figure art is more profound than the sloppy watercolour gunk that they had there. And then I improved some of them. You were so out of it that you took off your clothes and ran a canvas over your head because it you thought it was the path to rebirth. And it kind of resembled a womb. But all of it did. That's art for you"

"I do remember waking up in jail the next morning… And your mum raging. And my mum telling your mum to shut her crumpet hole because obviously liberal muggle friendly propaganda was to blame for youth not behaving like they used to and not treating elderly with respect"

"And running through the streets wearing a water colour womb as a tutu"

"And I'm like: if the liberals are at fault, how come I have to give my senile gran sponge baths every day for a month? Huh? Stupid mixed messages…"

"Well, so have they finally realized I was right?"

"It would seem so"

"What did they say?"

"Huh?"

"About my stick figures!"  
"Erm… Well… Uhm… Very post-modern"

"Oh really?"

"And… neo-simplistic"

"That sounds fancy"

"Reminded them of great artists like Hoity and Toity of the naivistic puerile-classic sub-movement"

"See? That's what I told them!"

"You did?"

"Anything is art as long as you call it something fancy. A chair on a chair? What's so special about that? Call it surrealism and it's oh, brilliant!"

"Hey, leave Magritte out of this!" Remus objected.

"It's not even _that _surreal. I could put a chair on a chair, provided I had two chairs of different sizes. Art…" Snort. "What made them change their mind about the stick figures?"

"I guess they found a way to categorize it at last" Sirius shrugged. "Yeah, they really liked how it was raw, carnal desire stripped to simple geometric forms, very neo-linear-infantilistic. Very symbolic of… Erm…" he nudged Remus, thinking pretentious talk was really more his area anyway.

"Eh… It's not!" said Remus cunningly when he couldn't think of any profound symbolism. "I mean, of course it is, but… just of what? _What does it all mean? _You see?"

Sirius clapped his hands together. "Like Bohemian Rhapsody!"

"Exactly. Everyone has to make their own interpretation. You're the only one who really knows what it means, but even then you only know what it means to you"

"So humour me. What does it mean to you?" said James, making a quick doodle of a stick figure, that turned out to be a drawing of moth I macroscopic detail entangled in the brush end of a slightly battered broomstick with flaking polish. The hoops weren't directly represented, but you could see part of their shadow. Remus passed it to Sirius after looking.

"Me? Oh… Well…" he tried to recall some doodles of indecent stick figures he had seen on tables and walls here and there. "It would be provocative, except the way the participants are stripped to their very lines makes it… Not so…" he had no thread whatsoever. "It's kind of like life! You have to dress it with your own meaning, and it can be… provocative" And now the ball was rolling a little. "And! And! Who are they? Are they royalty, or peasants? There are no details to their identity! We're all just a bunch of lines, when you think about it. Is that how we all start out? A bunch of lines?"

"With carnal desire?" Sirius added to that.

"Not everyone"

"Yes, everyone"

"No, not everyone"

"Some might be inhibited or in denial, but yes, everyone"

"So that's the meaning you find. Agree to disagree"  
"Except my meaning is right and so am I"

"What do you mean 'no details'?" James asked. "What about the hat?"

Hat?

"Why, obvious!" said Remus. "Stripped to the lines with nothing but an array of opportunities! In the hat, you know, like when you draw lottery tickets from a hat…" He hoped the hat was of the nature that would fit this interpretation.

They were all quite astounded at the fact that there was so much profound hidden meaning in nonexistent indecent stick figure doodles. Who'd have thought it?


	9. Grand opening

Longing from a subconscious

Part 9

The weekend came and the exhibition entitled _Longing _opened. All featured artists were present. The art gallery was small and consisted of two rooms, one main room that featured larger pieces, a lot of it sculptures and performance art. The smaller room featured simpler pieces that took up less space. The gallery didn't draw a terribly large crowd, not even a terribly interested one either. Just people out on the town on the weekend that happened to pass by and thought they could give it a quick look since it was in the same building as the library and the liquor store anyway.

"So what do you think?" asked an artist, gesturing towards a man trapped in the clamps of a large papier mache file through holes in his body.

"I can't see" James replied.

"So feel"

James turned to Sirius, because this was an art gallery after all. "Do I want to feel?"

"There are no wombs involved, if that's what you're asking" Sirius replied.

"No thank you, then"  
"So, you hired an actor for this or what?" Remus asked. The artist smiled enigmatically. Then he was informed that he had parked his flying carpet wrong and had to leave to take care of that for a moment.

They shuffled, a little bored, to another piece of art. The next piece appeared at first to simply be an ordinary paper bag on a podium, but when you looked inside you saw a dismantled pair of scissors.

They went to the smaller room that had more ordinary art. A small group of visitors were already observing the more simple paintings and sculptures. There were some other students there too, most of them from quidditch.

"I had no idea you were so talented" said Rol, awestruck.

"Yeah" Steve agreed. "I mean wow!"  
"Yes, I know" said James, taking it as sarcasm. "The lines are great"

"The lines are breathtaking!" Mort sighed. "You can really see the love!"  
"That's a less crude way of putting it. Just further proves my point, you can convince any snooty art critic that junk is art as long as you have the right terminology"  
"_Junk?" _Steve shook his head in disbelief.

"Has this experience made you all humble?" Gwen asked.

"How can you even tell if it's junk or not, you can't even see what you're drawing?" Rol asked.

"That's ignorant" said James. "Just because I can't see anything now does it mean I can't picture it"

A couple of more students- three, to be specific,- gathered around the ink art after having picked up some books from the library.

"That is fecking beautiful!" Cas exclaimed, immediately enamoured. Then she nudged James for attention. "Hello!"

"Eh lass, no swearing" Mac reproached her.

"Since when do you say 'lass'?"

"I thought I'd pick it up. Oh, I like this one a lot…"

Cas nudged Lily in the ribs. "What do you think?"

Lily scratched her head. "Well, I suppose I have to admit… It's quite… Well, stunning is what it is"

"'Stunning'?" said James. Disbelief a plenty.

"What can I say? Just the lines alone…"

"Yeah the lines are super, apparently"

"It's not just the lines. It's also all the… _raw emotion!"_

James backed slightly.

"Cas! Cas!"he whispered, not sure where she was but assuming she was still around somewhere near.

"What?" Cas replied.

"Who was I talking to just now?"

"Oh, you have changed. Artists, tsk, tsk… Never happy with your work, are you?"

"Come on. We all know the lines aren't _that _great! Stop patronizing me, it's not meant to be profound and awesome!"

"The order in which they are positioned is interesting" said Mac. "It starts off so light and then it gets a bit… Morose"  
"Which one is morose?"

"The one with the snake pit"

In the painting to which Mac was referring, a bunch of vipers were crawling at the bottom of a hoop, all covering most of a vole. One of them was biting through its neck.

"Wow, the penetration, gives me the chills" said Lily.

Suddenly Sirius came and pulled James with him to a corner.

"You have to come! There's already a buyer!"  
"Is this some very elaborate practical joke?"

"No!"

"Evans just said, and I quote: '_penetration gives me the chills'"_

Sirius suffocated a giggle. "You know how it is… They're all hopping on the band wagon now! It's cool to like this stuff all of a sudden"

"You know, it was a little weird to have Moony rallying about the profound underlying meanings in these obscene scrawls, because he's, you know, a little frigid. And a bit pretentious-"

"-A _bit?-"_

"_-_ But at least he was rallying about the symbolism and meanings and themes and all that highfalutin stuff. Evans just said, and I quote: '_penetration gives me the chills'"_

"Ok. Me too"

"Perhaps she was referring to the penetrating effect the underlying themes had on her mind" Remus suggested, a little put down for being called frigid and pretentious although they called him that all the time.

"She used to be a little more eloquent" said James.

"Maybe it was the stunning effect of the profound themes"  
"And a little more in favour of fetching a professor every time she caught me decorating a public area with my profound art"

"Well, like I said" said Sirius. "Band wagon, peer pressure… This kind of art is just in, right now. I didn't get it either at first, but all that rallying about profound themes… It's mind blowing stuff. I didn't know how to look at art until now. Anyway, this is Lord Stevens, duke of Wizard's Reading"

"Oh, all the way from Reading? Has my reputation spread that fast"

"The reputation of the liquorstore across the hall" Lord Stevens took a sip from a bottle of absinthe in a paper bag. "Hello, I'm Lord Stevens"

"I know. We're past that. Are you rich and snooty?"

"Very much so. Perhaps you've heard of me? I own the Walsall Warblers, the Barnstaple Barnowls, the Torquay Tercels to name three of the four teams I own, I've trained the Kilmarnock Crows and the Larne Larks-"

"The same Stevens that did that home video with Raquel Welch and had to go on to train the _Junior _Puffins and the _Junior _Crakes, but had to be let go because of that scandal that was all over _The_ _Weekly Serum _some years ago?"

"No" Ahem. "You're thinking of my twin"

"But you are very snooty and very rich?" Sirius asked.

"Yes. Very much so. And I am very interested in this piece here… "  
He was looking at the drawing with the magpies and the sunrise.

"I am very interested in this kind of art" he went on. "Most of it does not have this kind of delicacy and class"

"Aha" said James tiredly. "Well I'm not surprised you think that, considering that scandal"  
"I've opened up a field recently and I'm looking for art for the cafeteria. It's a field for snooty people"

"How many acres of ancient woodland did you have to tear down again?" Remus asked.

"Many, many acres"

"Well who cares about birds, they are scrounging" said Sirius. "The important thing is that you are very snooty and very rich.

"Yes I certainly think so. Well, to cut to the chase: I am willing to pay 4 000 for this piece"

"It's yours" said James.

"4 000 for this… with the profound meaning and all?" Sirius shook his head. "No, he will take no less than 20 000"

"20 000?" Lord Stevens sneered. "I have you know, I have studied art at college. Art is something of an interest. I know what a piece is worth, you can't trick me that easily"

"No, _you _can't trick _me _that easily. I mean look! Look at the lines!"

"They are nice, but not exactly original. This is good post card stuff, but it's not _art"_

"Sure it is! What about Larue Larue?"

"It's pretty to look at, but it's not that profound in all honesty. 4"

"18"

"4"

"Come on, 4 000 is pretty good for that crap" said James.

"Shush go away and let me handle it"

"You dragged me here"

"Larue Larue might be worth 20, but then those are classics. They weren't worth 20 when they were first made"

"His first exhibited piece went for 30" said Remus.

Mutual suspicion of bluffing hung in the air.

"Refresh my memory, what piece was that?"

"_Grazing Sheep"_

"Oh right. I saw that episode of _Antiques Roadshow _too"

"Well, if Larue Larue' art was worth 30 when it came out, this should certainly be worth more"

"Larue Larue was… a genious._ Grazing Sheep _captured the feudal oppression in a way that many found very provoking and his stippling work was very groundbreaking"

"So? _Grazing Sheep _wasn't stippled, it was cross hatched"  
"Yes, but even so, it came at a time when satirical art was prohibited"

"It was stippled"

"That's… That's what I thought"

"No. It really was cross hatched.

"Ok, enough!" Lord Stevens flared up, but cooled quickly. "It doesn't matter"

"_Grazing Sheep _wasn't worth 30 on the grounds you said. It kind of makes you look like a liar"  
"The rudeness! Give me one reason why I shouldn't just walk away this instant!"

Suddenly who should approach them discretely, supported on a pair of crutches after the Monster Scissors accident, if not Peter?

"Hello" he whispered timidly.

"Oh my god! Larue Larue's great great great great grandson!" said Remus, a tad hyper. "What an honour to have you here!"  
Blank stare. Peter was generally not quick to catch on, but Sirius didn't seem to see how that was helpful either.

"Chairman of the art critics committee!" Remus clarified. "Only the most powerful person when it comes to post-modern art and interior design! Larue literally decides what is art and what isn't. He's the reason everybody is decorating the top of their walls with spider webs and dwarf bats! He once said that every room should have a toaster and sales doubled!"

"Oh. _The _Geoff Larue?"

"Will"

Other present and eaves dropping art enthusiasts joined the growing crowd, curious to meet the much elusive Will Larue, who was so powerful in the field of arts but so rarely spotted. This made Peter quite nervous, because he was pretty shy.

"Are you really Will Larue?" asked an elderly lady.

Peter recalled what he had learned about always going along with everything his dorm companions said at all times even if it seemed dangerous, against his better judgment or his mum told him not to.

He glanced uncertainly at Sirius, who nodded affirmingly.

"Yes" Peter said.

Suddenly the gallery was buzzing with people talking on top of one another.

"Oh, Mr. Larue!" asked a woman. "Will it do, if I put my mailbox on a _womans' _bicycle?"

Another glance for guidance.

"No"

More eager chattering and call for attention.

"Mr Larue" said Sirius, pulling Peter from a handsy crowd towards the drawings. "You_ would _say this is art, would you not?"

"Yes"  
"And you would _also _say that this kind of art is necessary to complete any feng shui inspired interior design and that anybody that doesn't own at least one is a loser?"

"Yes"  
"And you would go on to say that they are all worth _at least _20 000 each and that anybody who is interested in their spiritual well being should invest in one?"

"Yes"  
"Because, you know, forget charity, because being in tune with the spirit within and the god-head is more important and this is the only way to achieve that, are those exact words?"

"Yes"  
"Which one is your favourite?" asked a gentleman.

Peter was permitted to choose freely, which he just found pressuring because he thought they were all pretty equal in terms of prettiness.

"This one, maybe"

"Oh! Oh! What do you like about it?" asked the woman that had asked about bicycles.

"I like the parts… Where the sun don't shine"

The clientele grew exponentially like weed.


	10. Timmy is trapped in a well

Longing from a subconscious

Part 10

The drawings had sold like hot cakes after the unexpected and quick departure of Mr Larue the younger. He had quietly disappeared during a tirade about the history of grass representation in gray scale, and good thing too because the press just missed him, and they had been so intent on asking juicy questions about his private life.

"What if the press will spy on me now?" Peter asked the following Sunday, slightly terror struck at the thought.

"All the drawings are sold, the name trade marketed" Page flick. "You probably won't have to pretend again"

"Is there really nothing that can be done about the blind thing?"

"There are plenty of things that can be done"

"So… Why hasn't anything been done?"

Remus wasn't sure. He had in all honesty simply forgot to ask, having gotten so distracted with the unexpected art work and the selling scheme it had inspired.

"Maybe he's on a waiting list" he shrugged. "Those can be long"

Although that was a perfectly reasonable explanation, nagging suspicion grew nonetheless.

Outside on the freshly aired grounds, cigarettes were being twirled in between fingers.

"Can you believe the time you have to wait?" James complained, inhaling.

"Yeah, well, that's public health care for you" said Sirius neutrally, wondering if there really were pipes from which you could blow smoke in the shape of dragons.

"St Mungos is private" James felt compelled to correct him, being more left-wing than Sirius as he was.

Public, state… Perhaps it didn't make any difference, considering it was Sirius who kept postponing the waiting time in favour of launching his career.

"It's not so bad, 'though, is it? I thought you got used to it pretty quickly"

"What choice do I have? It wasn't so bad because I knew it was temporary, but I was under the impression that I was only going to have to wait a month, but I've just been informed it's been postponed yet again!" James stomped a fag-end irritably.

"But what a great way to spend the wait! You'll come out of it rich and famous!"  
"But it's kind of interfering with my studies. It's a little difficult to aim, you see"  
"Think of it like this. You have a bunch of TV appearances scheduled and publications coming up. You will get rich so quickly you can pay your way ahead. So by the time you're sick of the fame and money, you can get fixed in a snap and won't have to wait a day!"  
"I suppose you have a point"

"You know how useless class is most of the time anyway. You barely have any catching up to do"  
Suddenly they heard a faint call for help.

"Did you hear that?" James asked.

"Hm, hear what?"

_Help help!_

"That just now"  
"Nope, no I didn't hear anything"  
"No? But you've always had such good hearing"

_Heeeeelp!_

"Your blindness must be playing tricks on you"

"It sounds like it's coming from here, we should probably look into it"  
"Why? This is what the teachers get paid to do"

They rounded the corner and headed towards the green houses. The call got louder.

"We're getting close" said James, arms reached out. "Where are we?"

"No idea" Sirius sat down on the edge of the well and lit a new floo roll.

_Please help!_

"Come on, you must hear! Somewhere here…" Crash. "The well! Is there someone in the well?"

Sirius took a quick peak down the well.

"Hello?"

"Hi" said the well.

"You know, sometimes I think I hear something but it's really imagined"

"I heard that too" James poked his head in the well. "What's your name?"

"Timmy" the well replied.

"Timmy is trapped in a well! We have to do something!"

"Do we, 'though?" said Sirius. "He could be a Slytherin"

"Are you a Slytherin?" James asked Timmy.

There was a pause. A growing pause.

"No?"  
"Liar" said Sirius.

"So what if he's a Slytherin? Having them do our bidding in gratitude is a good thing" said James.

"How many more do we really need? They're so grumpy about it…"

"They're grumpy about everything. Quit fussing and go"  
_Fine!_

The entrance hall was empty. No professor in sight. Sirius leaned against the entrance to the library, thinking he had done what he could in this matter and that there was nothing more to be done, the important thing was that he had tried.

Suddenly Peter came out of the library, startling when he saw Sirius unfolding a half-finished Prophet crossword puzzle, because he was just generally jumpy by nature, especially around people who were taller (which were everybody) and temperamental. And impulsive and slightly malicious and sometimes said hurtful things or set up schemes to humiliate you and were self-proclaimed narcissists. Peter wasn't sure what that was, he thought they were kind of like sociopaths except they liked to admire their own reflections a lot. People thought Remus was Sirius' polar opposite, but they were wrong. Peter was as much of a polar opposite as was at all possible to be, both in nature and appearance, and he had been so relieved when Sirius had not turned out as a cat like he had so desperately wanted just because he thought cats had more dignity.

"You there" he pointed the tattered end of a crow feather at Peter's pointy nose. "Tell any staff there is a boy trapped in the well. _Go!"_

Peter hurried off, nearly tripping on his poorly tied shoe laces.

_Luck in the Chinese bakery, 7 letters._ Tap, tap, tap. Stupid Prophet and their lazy clue recycling._ Fortune. _He tossed the paper away and went inside the library, hopped up on a table, snagged _Rock, Scissors & Paper: A guide to strategy_ from a stack of books beside him and looked through it for two seconds with miserable disinterest before he tossed it back on top of _Hopscotch and other numerology rituals. _Sigh.

"'I'm bored'" said Remus for him.

"Do you know what it's like?"

"No. Tell me all about it"

"Sarcasm?"

"How are you always bored when you're always doing something?"

"I'm not doing anything now"

Page flick. "You should try meditating"

"I'd rather die"

"Hang on, don't you have some eye-seeing to attend?"  
"I'll get back to that. In a minute"

"Was it so boring you have to recharge from the boredom with more boredom?"

"I had to come in here anyway, so I thought I might as well stop by and tell you all about how bored I am because I know how much that fascinates the psychoanalyst in you"  
Multiple page flicks. "Why did you have to come in here? And tell me about your childhood"

"Nothing. Someone is trapped in a well that's all. And so maybe I was regularly disciplined according to _200 unforgivable ways to punish your nasty little spawns _by _Morticia Poppins_, but I don't think that affected me. Everyone in the neighbourhood had that book and only 2 out of 10 don't develop antisocial tendencies"

"Someone is trapped in a well?"

"Yeah"

"Did you tell a staff?"

Floo being inhaled and the blown out in a ring, through which attempts and blowing rings through the ring were made.

"I sent Wormtail to get someone, no worries"  
"You came here to get him to get someone, although you're so very bored and so very desperate to do anything?"

"That boy has to learn to talk to people outside of us, you know. I did him a favour"

"Oh. That was very considerate of you, to take on such massive boredom, just to help him grow"  
"A pair"  
"As a person"

"With a pair"  
"On the other hand, because of your noble sacrifice, the person in the well will have to wait longer"  
"Not that much longer and it was a Slytherin anyway"

Book switch. Pause. Glance of suspicion.

"Did _you _push him in the well?"

"_No!"_

"Are you sure?"

"Yes I'm sure, I've been way too busy acting as an agent and cane substitute"

"If you say so…"

"Why would I push anyone that doesn't owe me money in a well? Waste of time and no money in it"

"I can't keep up with all your projects, maybe you're giving swimming lessons now too"

Sirius pondered that between rings, wondering how much he could charge for pushing people in wells. He could see the sign post before him. The marketing plan was already forming.

"Brilliant…"

"You want something to do?" Rummage, rummage. "Here"  
"A Rubik's' Cube? That's a doddle" Sirius tossed it back and forth, suddenly wishing he had a footbag on him.

"So solve it, then. It can be solved in as few as three turns and for every turn you're electro shocked, so try to make them as few as possible"  
Deciding on a first turn with care, a shock of electricity shot through Sirius, making it look as if he had taken a bath with a toaster.

"I feel… strangely at peace. And humble" Tssst. "False alarm"  
The swishy sound of arrival came to a hesitant stop.

"My flirting senses are tingling, you're both here aren't you?" said James, feeling his surroundings for people and things to avoid crashing into.

"How's Willy?" Sirius asked, dabbing his sooty face with wet wipes.

"Still in the well. Why didn't you get a staff like I told you to?"  
"I sent Wormtail to get someone, no worries"  
"Yeah, he's at the well too, now. The first professor he ran into did not have a moment to spare, and that was the end of that"

"Well…" Dab, dab "Prioritizing, you know"  
"No I don't know. All I know is I did not have this much trouble with Newton, how I miss that son of a Bichon Frisé…"

"Anyway, you made it this far so why don't you get someone?" The hair didn't need any work, it knew how to work itself out into fabulousness.

"It would go so much faster if you did, you… seeing disobedient person you"

"You know what's time consuming? Fussing"

"You fussed first!"

"A boy is trapped in a well! This is not the time to point fingers!"  
A squeaky chariot of books with a librarian attached to it passed them in no particular hurry.

"Well there's Pince now, why don't you tell her?" Remus suggested.

"Yeah, just go and tell her, she's not too far away for you!"  
"Ok I will, since you would rather sit here and _flirt!"_ James backed carefully and turned right, arms constantly looking out of obstacles.

"The other way" said Sirius.

There was a terrible clang of armours being knocked over like domino pieces. Hogwarts was simply packed with armours for some reason. Sirius got off the table with a heavy sigh to go and find Pince.

Madam Beathag (Beh-ak, not Beet Hag like everyone said even after correction) McFlaherty Pince was stuffing shelves with books somewhere deep inside the library. She wore thick glasses and her chestnut hair in a bun so tight it screamed silently to be let out in its glorious waves.

"Madam Pince" said Sirius, as if he had just drunk a mug of acid, and received her full attention. "There's a boy trapped in a well. There"  
"What's that, laddie?"

Poisonous stare. Pince possessed a very odd quirk of slapping her knees when upbeat, something she had picked up growing up on a yard where cairn terriers had been bred.

"Billy or Willy or something. Yeah. You should probably do something"

"A wee lad fell down a well?"

"Must have, seeing as he is now in the well"  
"Take me to him. Take me to him this instant!"

"It's the well by the greenhouse"

"What's that?" Pince adjusted her hearing aid. She wasn't old. Researching banshees had damaged her ears a few years back.

Sigh. "_The well by the green house!" _Sirius practically shouted into her one poorly working ear.

"Shhh! Eh, don't shout in the library!"

Fortunately there was a window behind them that faced the green houses. Sirius gestured towards them.

"The well by the green house?"

"Yes"  
"Take me to it this instant!"

"It's _right there!"_

"What's that?"

"I said" Sirius lowered his voice. "That you remind me of a centerfold"

"Right there, you say?"

"Mhm"

"Well, let's go then!"

"What do you need me for, it's _right there!_"

"What's that?"

Timmy was successfully rescued, draped in a shock blanket and brought to the hospital wing for hot soup.

"You know" James tossed a floo roll stump in the well and unfolded the latest Blind Prophet. "There is something called paraquidditch"

"Does it involve parachutes?" Sirius scribbled estimated figures for that well-pushing business on an old, crumpled bit of receipt.

"No. You're thinking of Paraparashuteball"

"If it was a game for parrots it would be-"

"It's quidditch for disabled"

"People in wheelchairs"

"Among others. People without arms, legs, working eyes. Yeah, I thought that although I have mocked it in the past, I will give it a go"

"But how would that even work?"

"I don't know, sensors and… walls lined with mattresses. Anyway, you know how there are some blind painters that are genuinely good at painting?"

"Like you! That's what you should devote yourself to!"

"To my stick figures? Yeah, that won't suffer, they aren't exactly time consuming. No, I mean real professionals, that are good at visualizing everything. I was thinking-"  
"Youwere?"

"-maybe that can work in other fields too! Like Beethoven, who composed although deaf!"  
"Painters and composers don't have to worry too much about navigation, and dodging big and heavy skull shattering balls. That sounded like a title for soul song""

"If people can play blindfold walking chess, why not blindfold quidditch?"

"But in chess you walk, like, a couple of squares at a time and not very fast either, if you collide with anything you don't really risk breaking anything and nothing can hit you in the head as long as the board isn't jinxed for some reason"  
"What is this I hear? You lecturing about safety?"

"Not lecturing… Pointing out flaws in ideas"  
"It won't interfere with my fantastic artwork"

"If you break all your fingers it will"

"So I will paint with my feet, there are people who do that"  
"It might collide with… appearing on talk shows and stuff"

"This art thing was just a bit of fun, I don't exactly want to do it for the rest of my life"

"But you have to go on A Magical Morning, you just have to!"

"Tell you what, I'll do whatever you want for the rest of this month. Then I'm done with this"

"Ok…" Sirius moped. Good thing he had that well project to keep him from getting bored again.


	11. What's the name of the blame game

Longing from a subconscious

Part 11

Peter was just cursed with bad luck, it seemed. At potions he had gotten squirts of Poisounous Apple Draught in his eyes and had had to be sent to St Mungos. He returned, early for Charms class and wearing an eye patch but in good condition over all. The charms classroom was almost completely empty. Almost.

"How did it go?" Remus asked.

"I'mnotsupposedtosayanything"

Nagging suspicion acted out like a bad knee.

And so later in the evening when James was away checking out the paraquidditch club and Peter had extra tutoring in transfiguration and Sirius was not only, in all likelihood, bored but also in possession of Morel Pixy Tears, which were known to cause severe hiccups, Remus found him at the well with the little flask with the obvious intent of poisoning the water supply.

He stopped and waited to see the fairy ring of Tricholoma Fatty take effect. It was dark and Sirius did not notice the mushrooms, and even if he had, he would not have known a reason to care. Unbothered, he stepped into the ring. The effect was instant. He got fat. Panic struck he backed out of it and to his great relief did it wear off.

So he went on to think, of all the people that had motivation to want to get at him, who would be behind this? Mushrooms… Who was a fan of the organic arts? He turned around.

"What should I do to the library… What would you hate?"  
"What business did you have at St Mungos today?"

"That… tittle tattler!"  
"Why has the wait been so long?"

"You think I have something to do with-"

"That's exactly what I think"  
"It's not a big deal. It can be stopped any time, why rush it?"

"You never think before you act. Did you even bother to make sure there won't be any long term effects from waiting too long?"

Ok, so maybe he hadn't but there probably wouldn't be. "It's just for the rest of the month, we agreed"  
"Oh. You agreed that you would postpone it until the next month?"

God he could be so annoying. "Do you happen to know perchance if there is any risk for any long term effects?"

"No, I don't happen to know because it was a trial treatment and very little is known"  
Crickets. "I suppose it doesn't have to be postponed for the A Magical Morning show next week, he could just pretend"

"So you'll fix it?"

"Yeah"

"Will you confess everything too?"

"I don't know, will you confess it was all your idea?"

"My idea? It wasn't my idea!"  
"It was your idea to not say they were Larue-esque drawings, but indecent stick figures. You wanted to keep it from him, so he'd keep making them"

Crickets. "For the art!"

"Oh, so it's not ok if it's for profit, but it's ok if it's for art? You were in on it from the beginning"

"But if I had known what you were up to I wouldn't have been!"

"Excuses. You wanted to lie"

"You can't compare temporarily withholding information with risking somebody's health!"

"It's not a question of who is more amoral, but that you're not as moral as you like to pretend"  
Crickets. "Yeah I will say it was my idea to lie"

"You will?"

Crickets. "It's not like he wouldn't have done the same thing"

"So you will, then?"

"What you did is still a lot worse!" 


	12. Raquel Welch

Longing from a subconscious

Part 12

It seemed like students were just doing random things at double hour in charms the following day. And they were.

"And that's all I have to say about that" said James, making a roll of thread slowly unroll itself to jazz music. "Yeah, being a recognized celebrity now is weird, but what's even weirder is that I never remember the pieces they talk about! And I certainly haven't been drawing grass!" The roll of thread hopped onto his wand and slid up and down. "Is the comb tap dancing? I don't hear any tapping. Just slow jazz music for some reason"

Professor Flitwick had to climb a ladder to reach the record player that was placed high upon a dusty shelf and take _Exotic Tracks -72 _off the player. "You students, stop stealing my records!"

"Anyway, maybe they are confusing me with somebody else"  
Another not much less kinky charms activity of stamps licking themselves and attaching themselves to envelopes took five.

"Uh yeah about that" Remus bunched the angry howlers to the ministry. "Do you know Larue Larue?"

"No"

"You know the cow in the hat painting your mum brought to the Antiques Roadshow?" said Sirius, trying to manipulate a fairest-of-them-all mirror to show Snape.

"Well yeah"  
"That's Larue Larue"

"Ok"  
Nervous bunching. "The thing about your stick figure drawings…What's this?" Some stamps seemed to have been attached upside down, and since that could potentially affect the chain of jinxes, Remus put them aside for correction. "The thing about your stick figure drawings is that they aren't stick figure drawings, but really pretty quidditch drawings that look like something Larue Larue could have done. It's the real reason why they've sold. Anyway, it was kind of sort of my idea to not say anything, because I thought it would affect the quality. And it was wrong and I feel terrible and I'm sorry"  
"Your idea?"

"In a manner of speaking"

"You mean to tell me, it was your idea to take advantage of my disability in this difficult, difficult time?"

Shameful nod. "Mhm"

"Just so you could profit off of it?"

Consuming guilt. "As good as"  
James turned to Sirius. "We've taught him so well"

"He's always been a natural" Sirius leered.

"Shame about the wait" Remus ripped a stamp from an envelope. A shrill ringing sound filled the room, startling everybody. He put it back on quickly.

"Did my UST meter just go off?" James asked.

"Another mirror…" Sirius looked around, saw that Cas was sitting nearby and nudged her. "Give me your mirror"

"What do you need my mirror for?" Cas opened her purse. "Don't you have several?"

She reached him a pink, clam shaped mirror. Sirius snapped it open.

"Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" The mirror got all misty, then it began to slowly illuminate a face. Sirius closed it. "Cas you cheat!"

"What?"

"_You're _the fairest of them all? Please"  
"What? You don't think I'm the fairest of them all?"

"Of 'them all'? Maybe you're the fairest in the room, but 'them all' is a lot of people"

Cas put a hand to her chest, moved. "You think I'm the fairest in the room?"

"You're definitely in my top 19 fairest in the room"

"The unintentional romantic is the most romantic" Cas had to put her hands up so the clam mirror wouldn't hit her in the nose.

The hour of potions class rolled around, Slughorn was taking unusually long to show up. Students glanced hopefully at the clock, keeping close watch on the passing minutes.

"Another 2 minutes and it's been 15 hello freedom" said Sirius, looking at a pocket watch.

Then professor McGonagall swished by and demanded the class' full attention.

"Professor Slughorn won't be teaching you today so you will all have to study independently"

"Why not?" asked a student.

"I ought as well tell you, and warn you at the same time. He ate some really bad mushrooms and exploded and he has been taken to St Mungos to be put together. Now, you must never under any circumstances eat a mushroom without identifying it as safe first! It doesn't matter how tasty it looks! You can all go inside" She unlocked for them and the students shuffled inside. "Not you"

"What did I do?" Sirius asked, thoroughly not that offended.

"I haven't done anything. How could I, I'm blind" said James.

"Tricholoma Fatty doesn't usually grow in a fairy ring around the green house well" said McGonagall. "Why did I immediately think of you?"

"I don't know why did you?"

"Is it because we're so resourceful?" Sirius suggested.

"I don't suppose any of you have a clue of how level 2 Dark Fungi made it to Hogwarts Grounds? Whoever did it can look forward to a month's worth of detention"

"I didn't even know there was such a thing as 'dark fungi" said James, while Sirius remained ambiguously silent.

"It was me, professor" Remus confessed, again consumed with guilt. "I _was _going to remove them-"

McGonagall crossed arms. "Just you? Why?"

"Because of that well incident. To stop it from happening again"

"Oh, you're good" said Sirius.

"I didn't think anyone would actually think of eating them" Remus went on.

McGonagall studied her nails some. "That's 20 points from Gryffindor-"

"_Just _20_?" _James protested.

"Bloody favouritism" Sirius quite agreed.

"You would have taken like 150 if it had been us"

"I could take 5, I could take 500, it wouldn't make any difference because we have no chance anyway" said McGonagall. "So be quiet, because that's all your fault. And 2 weeks-"

"What the hell? You said four!" Sirius could not believe this scandalous injustice.

"That's because I thought it was you"

"What does that have to do with anything?"  
"Let me explain something about punishing. Aside from damage and risk, you must also consider history and intent and necessity"

"Fine, then I'll just call everything 'good intent' from now on"

"I won't believe you. Good day" McGonagall swished off.

"'You never think before you act'" said Sirius whiningly. "When will you learn?"

"At least it was someone no one likes" Remus went inside the classroom, and Peter was quick to follow. Sirius sighed.

"I've created a monster. Well ok that wasn't my doing"

James swirled his cane around. "It wouldn't surprise me if it was, indirectly. _If you're blue and you don't know where to go to why don't you go where fashion sits? HNNGHNNGHNN!"  
_Looking at the watch, Sirius scanned his mind for excuses to leave so he could go to St Mungos and fix things. But he wasn't part of any club so he never had errands relating to that.

"I think I will go and…-"

"Hey guess what? I finally have a fixing appointment"

"Oh. When is it?"

"Tomorrow morning"

"Well… About time!"

"I got so annoyed with the wait so I asked Coach- as Fudge- if he could do something and apparently he's been trying to be in touch but I haven't gotten any mail from anybody lately"

"The postal system. You just can't trust it. I mean, it's just a bunch of greedy owls"

" It was you wasn't it?"

"Yeah"  
"I'm disappointed that it wasn't the stick figures that people paid way too much for. The point I thought I had made at last has not at all been made"  
"With marketing, people will pay way too much for your stick figures"  
"You mean, with a commercial featuring Larue's grandson in a gallery of stick figures and being fondled by playmates will make people pay way too much for my stick figures"

Sirius whipped out his note book. "You've never been the most luminous of people, but as a conductor of light you are unbeatable"

"You're the un-luminous one, if you didn't think of it"

Fondled by beautiful playmates in a dorm refurnished to serve as a shooting studio, Peter could not have looked less terrified in a terrarium of boa constrictors. He was wearing a mink coat and a blue hat with a wide brim and with a large ostrich feather on top. Stick figures in frames hung on the wall behind him. The plan was to show the film on A Magical Morning the coming Saturday.

"And that's how my transvestity adventure was resolved" James finished, seeing poorly again and leaning against the large note pad that had the lines for the commercial.

"Did they really see everything?" Sirius asked, giving the mink coat some final brushing. "Stop shaking!"

Shrug. "I'm not shy"

"That will just have to do" Sirius threw the fur brush over his shoulder so it hit a mirror and broke it. Of course it could be repaired but superstition theory still claimed that it was unlucky. But it also claimed that if you broke a mirror that had been broken once, it would reverse the bad fortune. But the thing about this mirror was that nobody had kept track on how often it had been broken, although they had tried to in the beginning.

"I can't believe you got _Raquel_ _Welch_" James watched with envy Raquel Welch give the deathly afraid Peter a back rub. He was as white as processed paper.

Sirius took his place behind the camera. "Ok, everybody. Don't waste the film! 1, 2, 5, roll camera"  
Tick tock. They all waited for the lines that had been written out so clearly to be read, but it was as if Peter had forgotten how to talk. He looked even more terror struck now than he had that time when they had been chased by zombies on the Cemetery of No Return in Do Not Enter Village.

"Just _read"_ James tugged the page with the lines.

Peter did seem to try, his mouth moved a little but nothing came out. Raquel Welch patted him on the head.

"Just read" she whispered seductively. Peter screamed and ran out of the dorm. Raquel Welch and three playmates posed.

"You know you want it!" they said in rehearsed unison and winked.

"Cut" Sirius stopped filming. "It'll have to do. Seriously, the things I do for him. Do I ever get a thanks?"

"Some people are just ungrateful" said James. "Voice over?"

"Yeah"


End file.
